LAGUNA HILLS — A 26-year-old U.S. Marine was arrested Sept. 15 on suspicion of fatally shooting his estranged wife the day before at her apartment, just a week after she had successfully sought a restraining order against him, authorities and court records show. The woman’s name was not released pending notification to the family.
was detained by federal authorities at Camp Pendleton shortly after sheriff’s deputies performed a welfare check around 2:30 p.m. onSept. 14 and found the 23-year-old woman dead at her Laguna Hills apartment in the 25000 block of Via Lomas, sheriff’s spokeswoman Jaimee Blashaw said.
She declined to say who had asked that deputies check on the woman.
Boykins was being held in Orange County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail and expected to appear in court on Monday.
The victim sustained multiple gunshot wounds, Blashaw said. A motive for the slaying had not been released, but Orange County Superior Court records suggest that Boykins and his wife had a tumultuous relationship.
On Sept. 8, court records show, the woman filed for a restraining order against Boykins, who no longer lived with her.
The woman outlined for the court a series of incidents, including several threats Boykins allegedly made to kill her.
“The (thing that most) scares me is that he, my husband, owns a gun and (I) fear that on his return he will come for me,” she wrote in the request for a restraining order.
The woman wrote that in August Boykins was calling her “non-stop” to make threats about killing her and taking his kids. “He was making threats that when he gets back from school in South Carolina he is coming to kill me as well as he wants to take my kids with him,” she wrote. “He told me yesterday that he was flying in tomorrow from South Carolina.”
In May, she wrote, Boykins during an unspecified gathering verbally abused her and her children, and threatened to fight her brothers and father. Police were called, she indicated, and he was forced to leave.
“He started out saying that he was going to kill me and my entire family,” she wrote. She also wrote that on April 19 Boykins had kept her phone from her, and when she tried to get it back grabbed her by the arms and shoved her forcefully onto a bed, hurting her ankle. A temporary restraining order was issued against Boykins, with a court date set for Sept. 29, where her request to have him take anger-management and parenting classes was to be considered.
The request for the restraining order notes that she had three children.
There is no record of any criminal charge against Boykins in Orange County.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Sheriff’s Department at 714-647-7000.
Anonymous tips may be submitted to Orange County Crime Stoppers at 855-TIP-OCCS (855-847-6227) or at occrimestoppers.org.
Just unbelievably sad. Threats turns into reality with restraint order. What’s the point of having one if it doesn’t protect you? RIP